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Bull. You are revising living memory. Of course it existed. It existed fifteen years ago, everywhere. The tech to listen in on all calls did not exist, nor was it legal. It was absolutely, constitutionally ILLEGAL to spy on citizens in the USA. We talked on the phone and messaged each other in the happy knowledge that it took a court order or Scientology operatives to obtain phone conversations or internet activity. Such things are possible today because our citizens are technologically and politcally illiterate and have absolutely no cultural memory past ALF reruns. The US is stupiding itself to death. OF COURSE WE HAD PRIVACY!! You gave it up!

There has been technology to wiretap calls for as long as there have been telephones. All you needed was access to the telephone company. Heck in the extreme early days, before phones were able to dial, a cop may simply sit by the operator and listen in.

There was a middle ground where it took a bit more legwork to get the wiretapping done, but there was no point where it became impossible if desired.

Yes, you “need” the court order, but that order can be granted in secret and is granted if no other ways to prove you are guilty of the investigated "serious" crime is available. If you are innocent, that usually means they will wiretap you because they wont find anything else to tie you up to the crime.

Over the decades warrants have been given to investigate even people just vaguely related to the real target of an investigation, as they may shed light on the target himself.

This is nothing new, and these computer monitoring is being implemented by many countries that simply don’t want to lose their ability to keep monitoring everything at will.

I can't believe this. I am a developer, I focus first on iOS, but I don't buy more developers focusing on iOS.

I believe more developers that are willing to invest time and money on polish do go for iOS first. I believe there is more money on iOS. But ignoring quality, just looking at sheer numbers, there are more Android developers out there.

Ok I love my iPhone, I tend to be "on Apple's side"... but this sounds like BS... I mean, there is an absurd number of apps for Android, I think it dwarfs iOS App Store app count... what are they using as their definition of "project"?

Perhaps the real news here is that a huge chunk of Android developers don't care for Flurry as their analytic solution, at least relatively speaking compared to iOS developers.

I'd like to hear comments from these women when they are in their 40s and fat (or just old). "Nobody looks at me anymore. I used to be cute and guys would give me all kinds of attention. Now they don't even look.:-( " Young women (and men) don't appreciate the beauty they have until after it's gone.

When a woman says that, they dont mean the sweaty kid in a convention. They mean the well-dressed executives at the office or the good looking guy at the bar.

There are two paths that can take a good looking woman to be a "booth babe": Marketing or modeling.

A model or aspiring marketer (perhaps with a full degree) seeks a job, the marketing/modeling agency sees her, she is good looking and will offer her no other position than "Booth Babe" mainly because they know they must force all good looking women that path or they will have no booth babes to sell.

Not only speeds, but we have a lot of ISPs now threatening to enforce their paper caps (you know, the ones they have not enforced but we have covered a lot in Slashdot.)

On the article, though... I love how Wall Street Journal reports on the dismissal of a rumor no one ever confirmed. I was sure these things would have disk drives, it's obvious. Bandwidth is not the only issue, complete absence of internet connectivity is still an issue in many households that own XBox, be it a full household thing or just restrictions on the kid's console alone.

The real questions I have:Will I get day-one digital download access if I do have internet, or will publishers be allowed to side on FUD and not distribute digitally?Better: will perhaps I get earlier access if I decide to buy digital or will I have to wait for the brick & mortar launch date?Will non-transferable digital only copies be cheaper?

Thats an extremely hopeful twist on what happened... Google didn't convince Verizon to "agree" on wired net neutrality. Google simply bent over and offered its support in exchange of Android pimping.

It is because of Google that the wireless net neutrality exceptions were accepted, because "Google had nothing to win so their agreement must mean there is no biggie" (other than Google actually having a lot to win from Verizon's Android support.)

recorded music is your advertising and you should be making money on live performances from the real fans

I was under the impression that it was always this way... that the records don't make you much, it's the gigs. Is that wrong?

Either way, those dirty fucks at Ticketmaster need to be next.

Partially true. The artist himself was not making much money because between loopholes and fine print tricks, the studios end up keeping nearly all the profits of media sale, in some situations some artist may find themselves owing money to the studios (since every cd sent to a radio station was/is fully expensed at a full retail price as a marketing cost that you are supposed to pay for from your profits.)

But media sales have always been very lucrative, an indie artist that refuses to give away his music in Spotify and instead sells directly via iTunes and other digital outlets, or even burning his own disks, may make a LOT of money.

I was into Reggaeton a few years back, a lot of the "reggaettoneros" artists wised up darn fast. They didn’t go to any label, they self-published their stuff and got filthy rich fast. Don Omar is a good example. These are people that didnt really grow daydreaming about the rock star life, so they seem to have pursued things in a more sensible way (despite their appearance and image of being uneducated and thug-like.)

I still don't get why in this information age, the american artist still dreams of being picked up by a big label and become a super star the 80's way.